Ashton plans to visit Egypt next week

Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, intends to travel to Egypt next week for talks with the government and with the opposition but has not yet received the green light from the authorities, according to a senior EU official. “Ashton wishes to go to Egypt next week but the Egyptians need to wish this, too,” the official said in Brussels today (9 February). “If she can go she will go.”

The Egyptian government has suggested that it would prefer not to receive foreign dignitaries, the official said, as massive anti-government demonstrations are entering their third week.

Ashton is scheduled to travel to Tunisia on Monday (14 February), although there is some uncertainty over her schedule and her ability to meet ministers of the shaky and beleaguered transition government.

According to the official, Ashton has been advised to meet Egypt’s main opposition group, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, but no final decision has been taken yet whether she will actually meet the group.

The official pointed out that the Brotherhood was part of talks last Sunday with Omar Suleiman, a close ally of President Hosni Mubarak who was appointed vice-president amid the recent turmoil, and that it would make little sense for the EU to refuse to talk to a political group that is part of the ongoing dialogue with the government.

Ashton has received instructions from EU leaders meeting in Brussels last Friday (4 February) to deliver a strong message to the Egyptian leadership that a democratic transition has to begin now.

However, this does not include an appeal to Mubarak, who has been in power for three decades and who has largely ruled through emergency decrees, to step down.

“The personality of Mubarak is not an issue [for the EU] as long as the transition starts now,” the official said. He said that if there was an obstacle to the immediate start of a transition, that obstacle would need to be removed.